When he’s on a script, you have to say Biden tells a helluva speech. The bit where he lowered his voice to talk about the poor poor people who needed the government to help them was really effective.

* * *

Continuing my thoughts for a bit. As I was saying, it really strikes me, when I listen to these speeches, that a lot of what we’re being promised is about what the government is going to do for us. None of what they want to do for us is undesirable, and I’ve always thought that the “left” makes a really basic mistake (for whatever reason) in assuming that the “right” doesn’t think these things are desirable. It’s not true. Free health care for everyone? Yeah, I’d love it. Everyone gets to go to college? Fine idea. Hell, I like teaching, it would be more chances to teach.

But then… how? There’s an ad running for AARP’s health care initiative, in which a family talks about how they went bankrupt, paying even just the differential between their mother’s insurance coverage, and the cost of her care for a brain tumor. I don’t doubt that’s true. Maybe it would be better to have a governmental single-payer system like the UK? Well, maybe — except the treatment they give for a brain tumor in the UK is steroids and information on how to compose a will. The AARP family have their wife and mother, and they’re broke; in Britain they wouldn’t be broke, just bereft.

But oh, we wouldn’t do it that way. Okay, fine: tell me how you would do it, and what makes that different from all the other tries?

They want to save people from poverty, and I agree that would be wonderful, but how? As PJ O’Rourke pointed out, it doesn’t appear to be anti-poverty programs; if we just took the amount of money spent to save people from poverty, divided it up among all the people below the poverty line, and sent them a check, they’d have so much money they’d no longer be in poverty.

So why is there still poverty?

They want everyone to have a good education, and I think that’s a fine idea, but how? Giving them more money doesn’t do it. As I pointed out with my CORS project piece, places like New York City already have enough money per student; it’s no that they need more money to pay teachers, because they could pay teachers $200,000 a year and still have money left over on the current budgets. Why can’t we pay the teachers enough? And why is it that it seems the more money per student, the poorer the results?

So why aren’t the schools better?

These are really rhetorical questions. We know why there’s still poverty: it’s because for every dollar a poor person gets, the intervening layers of government spend close to two dollars. The New York City schools can’t pay teachers enough because somewhere, somehow, of the $338,000 they pay for a 24-student class, nearly $300,000 is absorbed before they pay the teacher’s salary.

There are some good reasons for it; government doesn’t reward “success” in its ranks, or rather, the definition of success is different. Success in government is managing to spend all your money in a fiscal year and then successfully explaining that you need even more — because the good effects haven’t happened yet.

So if you’ve spent all your money and there are still poor people — we need more. If we’ve spent all our school funding, and Johnny still can’t read — we need more.

Really, the reason a conservative is not a liberal is because, under it all, there’s a suspicion that there is indeed some limit to what government can do for us.

When you’re growing up, one of the big shocks is when you realize your parents aren’t gods. They don’t know everything. They can’t make everything better. They might even not be smarter than you are.

All these speeches sound, to me, like the people speaking have never really gotten over the feeling that really good parents wouldn’t have those failings; they want Government to be their good parent.

* * *

Honestly, I know I’ve got a point in here, and it’s not gelled yet for me. What I do know, though, is that I’m supposed to be on the Martha Zoller Show at 11:20 AM EDT — 9:20 my time, and at the Convention. I’d better get to bed, so I’d better sign off.

Remember, still taking questions at Ask Charlie Anyhting. I won’t be going to the RNC, but if you want to ask, I’ll try to pass them along.

8/27 8:30 pm PST

The second topic Phil and I talked about was campaigns and campaign finance. Phil wants campaigns to be publicly financed, and he wants to make advertising for campaigns free. I pointed out that Obama had a chance to make his campaign publicly financed, and didn’t; we didn’t get far with that one. I wondered, if they made the New York Times give its space over to free campaign advertising, what would the Times do for revenue? “Well, it’s complicated. But the government should do something.”

And that’s really the story I’m hearing here. Joe Biden is talking now, and he’s promising to do something for people who have to pay for expensive gas — but what? Well, the government should do something. He wants to do something for people whose houses are now underwater. Metaphorically, he hasn’t hit Katrina yet. But I’m sure it’s coming.

I don’t have kids, but I was one once, and I have nieces and nephews. One of the things you see kids saying: They want Dad to do something. Now, Obama is telling us he’s going to be Dad, and he’s promising he’s going to make it all better, using government.

I just wonder: how?

8/27 7:28 pm PST

You know, I don’t think I’m suited to this liveblogging thing. Not that I’m necessarily supposed to be liveblogging, I just gave it sort of a try. Steve Green said the same things I thought, but better — I’m just not that fast a thinker.

So let’s stop and consider this for a bit.

I guess it seems to me like what is going on — and I hate to say it this way — is that it really seems to me to be, in a basic way, the kids vs. the grown-up. Or the Faithful versus the skeptical.

When I was talking with Phil, the guy from Michigan, today, that was something I really noticed. We talked about how things are with his company and at GM. One of his points, a good one, is when he quoted something John Dingell said. That was that GM isn’t a car company, it’s a health-care company that makes cars to pay for health care.

Now Phil, and by extension Dingell, is absolutely right: the way things stand today is that GM’s biggest single obligation (or at least very nearly the biggest, as the biggest may well be payroll taxes) is health care obligations under their union contracts. This adds — again according to Phil — something like $1,500 to $1,800 to the cost of each car.

The thing is, while health care costs are infinitly flexible, the price someone will pay for a car isn’t. Phil went on to the next step and pointed out that when you have that much of a cost per car, you tend to optimize to bigger cars, so that you have some profit left.

What’s the solution? “The government should do something.”

* * *

Did the cheering for Joe Biden as VP sound pretty thin?

8/27 6:57 pm PST

Okay, a little more calm reflection here. If only because, unlike Steve, I don’t drink, so I’m not properly fortified to listen to this.

First thought: Holy crap, that’s the shortest speech he’s ever given. Did they have snipers on him, or what?

(The commentators say that he went three times his alloted time and didn’t cover the topics he was supposed to cover. I guess three times his alloted time is something.)

Certainly we’ve seen what the basic ideas of the campaign we’re going to see, though. It’s clear that nothing that happened in the last eight years happened unless it’s bad. AIDS — Bush didn’t have much to do with the advances that Bono liked so much. The military is too tired — but that doesn’t have anything to do with the massive reductions in Clinton’s term.

On the other hand, there was just an ad for American Carol with Neville Chamberlain. Was that John Cleese? … Oh, no, Oliver Muirhead. … I hate listening to Sean Hannity, though. Even when I agree with him, it’s like listening to someone run a tape about 10 percent too fast. Over to Fox Business, then maybe CSPAN.

It’s always interesting to listen to Dick Morris comment. He’s talking to Neil Cavuto. He doesn’t like the Clintons (one can imagine why) and he wants to hurt them. Okay. What’s really interesting, though, is his tactical insight.

8/27 6:38 pm PST

Got home about 6:58, and the phone was ringing off the hook. Someone passed around the rumor I met Michelle Malkin. Yes, she’s at least as cute in person as on TV.

Listening to Clinton talk, and God, it’s just a target rich environment. He wants to talk about “cronyism”: Um, Mark Rich? About the overstressed military? Um, why is it there’s no more U.S. military to do the job? He’s got to be kidding.

Well, not with this audience; they know where the applause lines are.

“They want us to reward them for the last eight years with another four years.” Well, yeah. Better that than four years of redistributive waffling.

Some more quick notes. I’m sitting in PJHQ, eight stories down from the apartment Mom lived in when I was a kid. Just had lunch with Steve Vodkapundit Green and James Lileks.

THE James Lileks.

Is that cool or what?

Rode in on the bus with a Michigan Delegate and had a chance to talk with him and ask some questions, including a couple of the Ask Anyone questions.He had some fun stuff to say. His name is Phillip Reid; he’s from North Oakland Michigan, and a Clinton delegate. I asked him how that was going.

He told me he’d started out as an Edwards man, then moved to Clinton. I was curious because I’d heard CNN reporting that Clinton had released her delegates, so I asked him.

“No, as far as I know we’re still bound. I support Obama, but I’m a Clinton delegate and I’ll vote for her.” This was before the announcement this afternoon.

I asked him about the PUMAs, and he said, “I think, at the core, it’s racism. It would be really unproductive to say it.”

I reminded him at this point that I am press, but he continued.

“It would be extremely unproductive to say ‘you are racist’, but I really think that’s it.”

* * * * * *

I thought this was a good chance to ask some “Ask Anything” questions.

Clarice asks: “How’s the food?”

Phil: “Have you ever been to any major sports arena? It’s the same as any big arena — hot dogs, little individual pizzas. The only thing is, it’s just sodas and stuff to drink, no beer.”

Dana asks: “What could Obama say that could make you vote for McCain?”

Phil: “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

So, we’re about to run out to see a protest march. Have fun everyone. More to come.

8/27 09:30 am

Okay, this is going to be somewhat quick. My feet are better and I don’t think PJM is going to let me get away with reporting from my living room couch another day.

Some updates on yesterday

A number of people have said very, very kind things about me in the last 24 hours. Thank you everyone; there really are too many to link easily. But please, everyone link to this post, as I’d really like it to come high up the list for … well, he who will no longer be named.

Andrew Marcus at Founding Bloggers took a great picture of me with Michelle. Unfortunately, it’s a really good picture and high rez, and I can’t upload it to Google Docs where I do this stuff. I’ll have to have the PJM guys manipulate it to fit better.

Feet

The deal with my feet, and the reason I never quite got out yesterday, is that after walking probably 15 miles in the mall area, I ended up walking something like 3 miles home from the bus stop Monday night. That meant a lot of walking. I developed blisters on my feet. Then they developed blisters. By the time I got home and got my shoes off, the backs of both feet were like raw hamburger, and my white socks were mostly red.

Memo to self: the Doc Martens may have been a bad idea.

A little math geekery

There’s something that really is a pet peeve of mine. Today’s news was that Gallup has McCain leading Obama by two points in the daily tracking poll. The Gallup folks say it much better: “Obama, McCain Highly Competitive for Independent Vote.” The only thing is, there’s sampling error — a small group of people may, just randomly, not match the population as a whole.

Say, for example, I put 500 red marbles and 500 blue marbles into a bucket and mixed them thoroughly, then picked out 10 marbles, eyes closed, no cheating. The chances that I’d pick out exactly 5 of each color are pretty small; more likely I’d get 6/4 or 7/3. That sampling error: if we get 6 of one and 4 of the other, we can’t tell whether that means the marbles are 50-50 or 60-40. So when, as now, a poll has a 2 percent margin of error, and the candidates are within 2 points, all you know is you can’t tell that from being absolutely equal, or even 2 points in the other direction. It would be just flipping a coin.

The trends, however, don’t look good for Obama at all. It would appear that the more the voters know of Obama and the company he keeps, the less they like him. This is legitimate to say; the more samples you have — like the many days in a row — the better your estimate. For McCain to keep ahead for several days would mean that those random errors cancel out.

Denver PD and Michelle Malkin

I did get a call from the Denver PD’s convention task force about the Michelle dust-up. The spokesman, a Lt. Saundier, told me that the behavior of the police at the Mint on Monday was not acceptable procedure, and he invited both Michelle and me to file charges. In addition, after the convention is over, he invited me to file an internal affairs complaint. We’ll be sending them links to the video and our coverage.

If you can get your hands on it, get some Corona. No, not the beer. It is a salve used for farm animals to promote healing and keeping biting insects off the wound. Provided you know where a feed store is, I don’t think Wal-Mart carries it. Now with your feet the biting insects won’t be a problem, but it also helps coagulate in a hot and wet environment. Still need to use bandages, because the salve along with the heat and perspiration will cause the scab to form onto the sock. Not pretty. But, yeah, ditch the Martens and stick with Nike, Reebok, Converse, whatever brand sneaker you like. Hope your feet recover soon.

Lt. Saundler is to be commended. Strong language is not out of place at a political convention. But when that thug followed Michelle for hundreds of yards, yelling slanders and threats, the police should have stopped him and made clear that he must either shut up or face arrest. She is after all small and clearly was trying to avoid a clash and get away, while he was large, intrusive, and threatening. And for yelling “Kill Michelle Malkin” he should have been arrested on the spot, taking care not to release him until the convention was over. Freedom of speech doesn’t permit calling for someone to be killed in a crowded public space.

My suggestions: Michelle should file charges, so the city of Denver can prosecute this guy, giving him a criminal record in the city. And she should also file an internal affairs complaint with the Denver police department over their failure to act. But her complaint should be written in such a way that it helps the police respond better the next time rather than to punish the city or the police.

Keep in mind that in incidents like this, the police tend be tilted in one direction or the other. In a bar district, they’d be tilted toward a quick arrest, before an argument leads to violence. In political demonstrations, they’d be tilted toward not acting, even when it was justified, as here. They fear an ACLU lawsuit.

I had that happen to me. A couple of years ago, I was walking down a Seattle street when suddenly, in front of me, a man as deranged as this thug started banging on the side of a car and yelling at the driver. I missed the triggering incident, but apparently the elderly driver, without doing any harm, had backed ever so slowly into the thug’s car in the parking place behind him. I did nothing, to my regret.

Later I concluded that I should have spoken to the guy, staying calm and refusing to be threatened. I should have told him that what he was doing was disorderly conduct and that if he did not stop, I would call 911. As I was doing that, I’d be waving that elderly man to drive away. Once he was gone, I could walk away.

Why didn’t I do that? Because my mind wasn’t primed to act that way. I was primed to slip by and do nothing like most people.

In a similar fashion, the police need to be primed to imagine themselves acting in these sorts of situation rather than standing by. If I were as pretty and articulate as Michelle, I’d offer to help turn that video-taped incident into a video that could be shown to cops in training across the country. The incident could be shown, she could be interviewed about how she felt, and then the police department could explain what should have been done by the officers on the scene. The result would be positive and helpful.

I hope glc is ready for more wars and more recession because if he votes for McCain that is what he gets. Get your kids ready for the draft….

quoting snippets from some other blogs… whether Obama is ready to lead… this is McCain…

“McCain often cites Ahmadinejad as the “leader” of Iran – which isn’t actually true. In a complex nation, in a complex world, Ahmadinejad is only president, a vastly less significant office than Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei. When this was pointed out to him, McCain brushed facts aside and said, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that’s what Americans THINK he is.”
Now that’s scary. McCain is not smart enough to be President.

Former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, a senior national security adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, said that he has never seen Obama lose his temper, even in situations of “exceptional stress.”
By comparison, Obama’s GOP rival John McCain is known for “losing it.” Danzig said McCain is known for forming an opinion or a decision quickly and then “digs in.” McCain’s volatile temper is well known to Beltway insiders, but Democrats at their convention are trying to make this known to the larger audience, as part of a tug-of-war about who between the two candidates is prepared to be commander-in-chief.”

Charlie! I am sorry to hear you were so badly hurt. Big drugstores have special banadages to put on those blisters which have special cushioning and medication. Do not go out again without them on those blisters!!!

I was SHOCKED at the attempt to incite a riot and shouting “Kill Michelle Malkin”. She should have insisted the police arrest that guy. I just moved away from Denver and am horrified at the behavior shown in the video on YouTube. I told my mother about it as well and she too is horrified. This is the main reason why Democrats are such monsters: they hate everyone that doesn’t think like they do. Scary stuff!

You mean to tell me Americans don’t want as President a know nothing pacifist marxist who consorts with rich-kid-punk-terrorists (and lies about it) and racist ministers ( and again lies about what he heard as he sat in that man’s pew for 20 years.

Former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, a senior national security adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, said that he has never seen Obama lose his temper, even in situations of “exceptional stress.”
No, he just starts acting like someone who is having some kind of seizure, especially if he is disconnected from his teleprompter. Or is that his life support system?

There is enough on that video for a big time prosecution of coward jones. Terrorist threats, incitement to riot, stalking, battery, etc. I’m not sure of CO laws but coward jones may want to send some chocolate and flowers to Ms. Malkin asking for her forgiveness.

As for the so-called officer, he should have intervened several times, and failed to. At what point would he? When coward jones struck Michelle?

Former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, a senior national security adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, said that he has never seen Obama lose his temper, even in situations of “exceptional stress.”
By comparison, Obama’s GOP rival John McCain is known for “losing it.”

==============
As for polls, it’s still early, banks are still failing, industries still bailing for China, domestic car manufacturing industries may die, we face a growing health insurance and entitlement crisis, and 9 trillion in bad paper may have to be absorbed by the taxpayer instead of the Ruling Elites living high on real estate speculation since the 90s.

Plus foreign policy fiascos and a the beginning of a decade-long energy crisis for us and a looming chronic food, water, energy crisis in overpopulated sections of the world. seek to flee the lands they wrecked to immigrate and breed away and wreck other countries.

And polls ignore that McCain has his own divided Party, with factions of rich Bush corporatists, intolerant religious zealots, Northern & Midwest moderates, Republican women who are pro to moderately prochoice, and various Mormons, atheists, screwball libertarians.

Half the Republicans start the Convention hating McCain, and no way will McCain ever be able to mollify the factions to close all the fault lines. He will have to piss off some factions royally, or optimally, all the factions a bit. And you will see the Republican version of the Hillary PUMAs on display from the Fundie religious ceremony rattlesnake-handlers, the 6,000 year old Earthers, angry fatcats roiled with the idea that McCain may cut off their K-Street hog trough, or pro-choicers and abortion moderates, log cabin gays upset at being relegated to 2nd class status.

And women in a bipartisan hissy fit if Republicans refuse to nominate an underqualified woman as VP. And small town Republicans whose livelihoods have been destroyed by global corporatism are also waiting to see if Republicans offer a vision they can still embrace, or they are shunted aside for fatcat free trade interests.

Way to early to see the Dem Convention as a disaster before the Republicans, who have fucked up just about everything they have touched since 2000, have their own go at things.

Obama supporters keep chanting the mantra that Barack Obama
is the candidate who can unite our country … but, Obama couldn’t
even unite his own party … even after winning the nomination. And,
in reality, McCain has the history of working across the isle in congress.
Obama has brainwashed his followers into operatIing on ‘belief’, rather
than reason … just as he learned in Jeremiah Wright’s church … the power of BLIND faith.
Even his campaign solgan is based on belief, not common sense, logic,
or reason. Obama’s even got his followers publicly denouncing the importance
of experience … as if that’s the reason Bush performed poorly … when the
real reason Obama and his followers denounce experience is because
Obama doesn’t have any.
Keep America Strong … Elect Senator John McCain in November !!

Thanks for your reports, and I”m sorry you got such bad blisters. It won’t help too much now, but in the future I highly recommend moleskin (Dr. Scholl’s) to protect sore spots before they develop into bad blisters.

In the Rangers, we found that 100MPH/UGT (ugly green tape) swathed liberally over bloody blistered areas was quite helpful.

The closest civvie equivalent is duct tape.

And, for the love of all that is holy, ditch the Doc Mtns. The newer ones are made in China crap. Get you and your poor dogs to the nearest Redwing dealer and treat yourself to some quality, comfortable footgear made in the USA. Your dogs have earned it. Also, quality socks, preferably thin wool socks with a cushion bottom.

Topical anesthetics with anti-bacterial properties slathered over the bloody blisters can also help. But, make sure that at night, your feet get a chance to dry out. Wash them up good & rigorously with soap, water, & a washcloth. After you are finished screaming, prop them up for the evening.

Thanks, folks, again. I actually got the special bandages Clarice recommended, and they help a lot. It helps that I have the world’s highest pain threshold. Of course, that also doesn’t help, because I was saying “Oh, my feet hurt. Okay.” when I should have been doing something.